The Cost of Happiness
by insaneprincess
Summary: DHr. "He hoped, in a shattered way, that while she was living out her dreams, she would stop for a moment, and consider what that happiness cost. And he begged, silently, that she would feel just the tiniest piece of sadness for it." M to be safe.


Disclaimer: I don't own. I'll never own. This is somewhat depressing to me.

A/N: Random, came out of nowhere. Draco/Hermione. Post-War, Post-Hogwarts.

This is rated M to be safe, because of language and sexual references, and I may move it to T later on, but I'm unsure. Anyways, enjoy it.

Please Review (:

***

She stood there, too beautiful for him. Too beautiful for anyone.

The dress was beautiful, white lace, with violet trim. It fit her perfectly, it was stunning on her.

Her hair fell in glossy honey curls, perfect. She was different now, and he had to learn that. And he had to learn it quickly.

All he could feel was her eyes on him, the desperation, the despair evident. She wasn't saying what they were both thinking. She didn't have to.

He loved her. He knew he did. He also knew he shouldn't.

It was not worth it. Not worth it because of this. That was why he called her here. Because nothing was worth it.

It was worth it to him. But that didn't count.

He looked out at the rain. He reached out an arm from their dry stone alcove, and touched it, to make sure it was real. It felt like it was the only thing that was.

He was stronger than this. He had to be. Life was a dangerous game, and they played it like Russian Roulette. They had no cares. They took these risks, they craved the danger. And they were wrong to do so.

She'd already said the important words, the ones he didn't need to hear, but the ones that made this final. There was no going back. It was just too late.

There was a ring on her elegant ring finger, after all. A manacle, really. But she didn't see it that way. So, he would let her go.

It had gone on long enough.

Well, not for him.

It was never just an affair to him. It was so much more than the secrets, so much more than the darkness. But it wasn't that to her. They always fucked in the dark, so she didn't have to see his face. So she didn't have to see her mistakes.

She cared about him, and he knew that. It wasn't entirely meaningless. But it wasn't everything to her. She had a life beyond him. She was successful and beautiful and wealthy. She was marrying someone rich and handsome and winning. Someone who society admired.

He was an outsider. He was worthless and out of options. He was unloved and unlovable. The world hated him for his sins, and he hated the world for theirs.

She was entirely different than him. She was entirely better than him.

She was on a different level. But he'd grabbed her, and thrust her to his level. He'd thrown her into the dirt that was his world. He'd shown her the grime and the filth, just for a glimpse of the beauty that she lived in.

She was a treasure from a different London. She was living such a different life.

An affair was beneath her. It was where he resided. By speaking to him, by letting his filthy hands touch her, by allowing him to wreck her purity, he'd pulled her to his level. So far beneath her.

He looked at her. The way she watched the rain. The way she looked through the shadows. They always met in the shadows. They didn't belong in the sunshine.

He knew it wouldn't rain at her wedding.

The alcove was dry. The alcove was dark. He saw only half of her face through the shadow, ivory and glowing. Like the moon, but more beautiful.

She already ended it, ten minutes earlier, because it was right. He called her here. He broke the first tie. And he didn't do it because it was right. He doesn't give a fuck about right and wrong. But he cares about her. And he knew how he hurt her. He knew how this hurt her, and because he knew she couldn't do it alone, he helped her break it.

He only sent the letter because it was raining.

He looked again into her mocha eyes, framed by those long, shy noir lashes. She was too beautiful, standing there in her unstained white dress with the violet trim. She was too perfect.

That gave him the courage.

He wished he had the strength to glare at her, to curse at her. To call her filth, and a mudblood, and to say she isn't worth it. That he hates her for what she's done, that he's always hated her, that he used her, and that she wasn't that good anyway.

He wished he could give her that, if nothing else. A clean break, an easier ending. But he couldn't bring those words to leave his lips. He had never been able to lie to her. He couldn't tell her all these things, because it wasn't her that he was describing, it was him.

He wished he was that strong, but the best he could do was letting two helpless words escape his filthy lips.

"Just go."

She turned away from him then and looked at him. And in that final gaze, he read everything. There was the sadness he never saw, the sorrow he pretended couldn't exist, the despair he craved, and beyond it all, the regret. The remorse.

He pretended, because he needed one little piece of harmless happiness, that he didn't see the touch of relief there, too.

With that look, that look filled with everything, she was gone. She didn't have any umbrella; she just turned from the alcove and ran into the rain. She ran down the cobblestones of Diagon Alley, and never looked back. Not as the rain stained her perfect dress for what he knew was the final time, because the rest of her life would be sunshine. Not as the lightning flashed, lighting the empty street. Not as she turned the corner and disappeared.

And he slid to the ground, into the mud, where he belonged.

He didn't regret it, because he did it for her. He knew he had finally done what was right, not for him, but for someone more important.

Together, they had no future. It was grey and bleak and hopeless and broken.

Apart, they could find happiness, and that beautiful, colourful, blissful future they craved, but could never find with one another.

He knew that in a week, she would slip into a beautiful, stainless, stunning white dress. And maybe it would even have violet trim.

He knew that she would be smiling and laughing, and she would walk down that aisle, happier than she had ever been in the dark. And he knew that she would say, "I do" with no thoughts of what she lost.

But he hoped, in that sick, broken way, that maybe when that perfect groom kissed her, or when they were making love that night, that she would think, just one fleeting thought. He hoped, in a shattered way, that while she was living out her dreams, she would stop for a moment, and consider what that happiness cost. And he knew that it was too much to hope for, but he begged, silently, that she would feel just the tiniest piece of sadness for it.

Maybe one day, he would find someone too. Someone who made him happy. Someone completely different than her. And he knew, that if he did, he would feel that little piece, that tiny particle of remorse.

Maybe one day, they would see each other, after everything. And maybe they would remember, and maybe they would remember that little bit of remorse.

And maybe then, he prayed, it wouldn't hurt anymore.

He looked out at the rain, and he hoped.


End file.
